Project Description

Overview and Significance

As the problem of identifying suicide bombers wearing explosives concealed under clothing becomes increasingly important, it becomes essential to detect suspicious individuals at a distance. Systems which employ multiple sensors to determine the presence of explosives on people are being developed. Their functions include observing and following individuals with intelligent video, identifying explosive residues or heat signatures on the outer surface of their clothing, and characterizing explosives using penetrating X-rays terahertz waves, neutron analysis or nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR).

At present, radar is the only modality that can both penetrate and sense beneath clothing at a distance of 2 to 50 meters without causing physical harm. The objective of this project is the hardware development and evaluation of an inexpensive, high-resolution radar that can distinguish security threats hidden on individuals at mid-ranges (2-10 meters) using an “on-the-move” configuration and at standoff-ranges (10-40 meters) using a “van-based” configuration.

As recently pointed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), being able to detect security threats without interrupting the motion of the person under test will be one of the most valuable features of the next generation personnel screening systems.